Pulmonary embolism (PE) is an important cause of sudden death and is difficult to diagnose. Therefore unnecessary radiological investigations are often resorted to. Although some inflammatory parameters in the hemogram have been found to play a role in the diagnosis of PE, many parameters have not been adequately investigated. We aimed to evaluate potential inflammatory parameters in hemogram in the diagnosis of PE and to determine the parameters with the highest diagnostic value. This single-center, retrospective study was performed by evaluating 114 cases with suspected PE admitted to the emergency department between January 2017 and June 2022. Among 114 cases, 62 cases with a definitive diagnosis of PE by pulmonary computed tomography angiography served as the PE group and 52 cases without PE served as the control group. Admission hemogram parameters of both groups were recorded. Potential chronic diseases and acute conditions affecting hemogram were excluded from the study. In the multivariate model; immature granulocyte (IG), neutrophil/lymphocyte ratio (NLR), monocyte % and platelet large cell ratio (P-LCR) were found to be significantly and independently effective in differentiating cases with and without PE ( P˂.05). Our findings suggest that high IG, high NLR, high monocyte %, and low P-LCR values have diagnostic value in cases with suspected PE. However the usability of IGs in the diagnosis of PE is a new finding. Hemogram is cheap, easily accessible, and potential inflammatory biomarkers in hemograms may increase physicians’ awareness in the diagnosis of PE.

Introduction: Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease (COPD) is a common multifactorial disease which has heterogeneous pathogenesis. The most important risk factor is smoking. In addition to many pathogenic mechanisms taking part in inflammatory process, Our study group does research on the relation of COPD with single nucleotide gene polymorphism at ET-1 gene. In the current studies there being a high ratio of Endotelin-1 (ET-1) in BAL liquid of COPD cases made researchers think ET-1 may have an important role in pathogenesis of COPD. Methods: This prospective case-control study included 89 patients admitted with COPD and 87 control patients. In our study, we search for the density of single nucleotide gene polymorphism (+134 insA/delA) in ET-1 gene in the 87 smoking COPD and 89 healthy cases. Allele ratio and genotype distribution, distribution amongst three genotype in the COPD patient and healthy control group was analyzed. In this study, for endothelin gene -3A/-4A (-138 insertion/deletion) polymorphism analysis, PCR-RFLP method was used. Results: In comparison with the healthy group, the COPD group has higher ratio of ET-1 gene (+134 insA/delA) polymorphism (p< 0,001). Conclusion: Endotelin-1 gene polymorphism (+134 insA/delA) significantly increased in the patients than healthy ones (p<0,013). Endothelin-1 gene polymorphism may be considered as a predictive genetic factor of COPD in Türkiye.

Introduction: The aim of our study was to investigate the long-term effects of different doses of steroid therapy given in the acute period in hospitalized coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) patients. Methods: A total of 78 patients who were followed up in the hospital due to COVID-19...